Abu Dhabi hospitals face huge costs for obese patients

Abu Dhabi, UAE: Hospitals are being forced to buy costly equipment to treat patients who are morbidly obese.

One hospital group has spent Dh500,000 this year alone on special scales and super-strength hoists. Others are buying large wheelchairs and reinforced beds and operating tables.

“With every purchase order we get oversized chairs, oversized beds, even oversized hospital clothes,” said Dr Lalu Chacko, medical director of LLH Hospital.

“Lots of obese patients come in. Sometimes they are more than 200kg. It is shocking. Even in the paediatric section, we have really obese children coming in.”

Dr Ananth Pai Kalsank, head of general surgery at NMC Specialty Hospital said he had patients who weighed 290kg. “The main thing we have to do is get operating tables that weigh up to 350kg,” he said.

Tables also need to have adjustable heights “because these patients have big tummies”, Dr Kalsank said.

“Otherwise, a doctor has to stand on a platform.”

Special equipment for obese patients has become a common expense, said Dr Chacko.

“Every operation room must have an oversized bed and tables that can take extra weight. Obesity surgery is becoming one of the most common surgeries,” he said. “Obesity has become part of life in the Middle East.”

Ka Jeye Pandiyan, materials manager at VPS Healthcare Group that oversees LLH Hospital and manages Life Care and Burjeel hospitals, said the group had spent almost Dh500,000 on such equipment so far this year.

This included special scales and super-strength hoists for larger patients.

Mr Pandiyan said specialist instruments also need to be bought for bariatric patients, and operating tables for those classed as obese – or who have a body mass index of 30 or above – which need to be able to withstand weights of at least 200kg.

Obese patients come with an extra added cost, said Dr Chacko.

“But what we are more worried about is the medical problems they will incur because of obesity,” he said. “That is what we are trying to educate them on. It is an epidemic.”

More than 66 per cent of men and 60 per cent of women in the UAE are overweight or obese, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013, released last year.

Paul Bosio, chief medical officer at the Corniche Hospital, said half of its patients were clinically obese.

“Obesity had been a problem for the past 10, 15 years in the West and in this area our obesity problem is as serious, if not more than certainly Europe. It is probably akin to the US.

“So we have had to adapt. We have got obesity policies and guidelines, not just the clinical aspects but the practical aspects.

“Our operating tables, for example, are now designed to take up to 300kg and they have got extensions on them, as sometimes it is not just the weight but the actual size of the patient.

“All our hospital beds take up to 250kg.”

Corniche Hospital also has bigger weighing scales, and extra-wide wheelchairs and bariatric beds, said Dr Bosio.

The hospital regularly treats patients weighing more than 100kg and some as heavy as 180kg.

“That is BMIs that you cannot measure,” said Dr Bosio. “Those bring complications you cannot measure.”

Obese patients can mean extra staff are also needed during treatment, he said.

“Undoubtedly there are significant resource complications and significant health complications, which goes without saying.”

Ambulances are also paying for obese patents.

Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services announced last year that ambulances in Dubai were to be colour coded according to what sort of patient they are carrying. Dark green vehicles will be assigned to patients who are morbidly obese.

The National Ambulance said all of their ambulances and equipment could carry any patient, including those of a “larger frame”.